Батя
by caballlah
Summary: Natasha never had a family. But maybe with Clint's help, she can still be a happy little girl.
1. Chapter 1

They'll do it every time. Ain't that the way it goes. Clint wasn't quite clear on the meaning of irony—Nat had tried to explain it, but it kept seeming to mean just about everything. But he was real clear on the other thing. That feeling when you just knew how something would go and it went and was gone that way, dead-center, bullseye, not off by a fraction of an inch. Not ironic, not a shock, not a twist, except in how freakin' obvious it was that the universe had not taken one iota of creativity in playing shit out to the finish.

He thought it was a uniquely Southern concept—maybe a little Russian, the way they gushed on about tragedy, which was maybe why he and Nat got along so well—but for his money, Southerners had perfected the notion.

The lack-of-irony was why it was so fitting that he'd been around the world a couple'a dozen times, been here, there, and everywhere, and now he was going to die in an unSovieted hellhole dustbowl that made good old Deerfollow, Alabama look like a resort town.

Join the Army, see the world, get shot somewhere that could've been a neighborhood two blocks over, if you just replace the bearded fundamentalist hillbillies with bearded fundamentalist Chechen separatists.

Not that he was _shot-_ shot. That was Nat. He'd barely been grazed, but she'd taken one in the chest and one in the leg, and it was so bad she hadn't even been able to respond in kind. He'd had to do it for her, so now her shooter was gonna need to be fitted for either an eyepatch or a coffin.

Which left him in a piece of shit shack that had been bombed out despite its piece of shit status. It didn't look much more ramshackle now that its aluminum siding had been blown out, but it was still a precariously set assemblage of walls and ceiling that, like an Occupy Wall Street march, had little unity and even less idea what they were trying to accomplish. All the shit really did was keep anyone else from getting line-of-sight on him and Nat. Because if Nat was dying, sure as shit he wasn't making it out.

"Stay with me," he told her. In a moderate crisis, the adrenaline gave you a quick wit. Major crisis, you went with clichés. "Hold my hand. It's right here, Nat. Give me a squeeze to let you know you're still here."

Clint had seen grown men whimper when they'd been hit, battle-scarred veterans whose bodies shut down on them. It was just the nature of the beast. He'd felt it himself. Human technology had produced a sensation that human bodies were not meant to feel: shattered nerves in torn flesh, cracked bones, ripped viscera, even the burning of the bullet's passage through the surrounding flesh. It was hell on earth. Nat looked good, but even she was no super-soldier. She had put off registering pain, kept her well-disciplined body feeling just the pressure of the hit long enough to stagger with him in here.

 _Now_ the pain hit, and she squeezed his hand like she was interrogating him, the pain bordering on the euphoric. A fresh bout of sweat wrestled with her face, tried to make that lovely visage go ugly. She was tearing up, noseful of snot, grimace seared into her mouth.

Fuck, he hadn't known she could look less glamorous. She took punches from guys who could man the door at a club for bouncers, got picturesque little scratches and no bruises. Got into knife fights and was left with nicks that accentuated her cheekbones. This was pain, though. Not endurance, not strength, just pain. Nothing pretty about pain.

Endogenous catecholamines—euphoric hormones—barreled into her system to cover up the pain and replace the lost blood. It was one of the few things Clint knew better than her. He'd been a punching bag, a piñata, batting practice while Natasha was dodging hits, ducking bullets. He knew how to deal with pain. Nat knew how to suppress it. That went far until her body wouldn't let her suppress it, until biology turned on her and told her she was getting her second wind. Like she was playing fucking tennis.

"I'm fine," Nat said. "I'm fine, fine…"

"You ain't," Clint retorted, pressing her back down as she tried to sit up—last thing he needed was her aggravating her wounds more.

"I've had worse… s'not serious…"

"No, _I've_ had worse. _Trust me._ This is the kind of bad you need hospitals for. Only we don't have hospitals."

Nat tilted her head back and tried to summon up that serenity that some people mistook for being a cold bitch. "Next time we book a vacation, make sure there are hospitals."

"Yes ma'am."

"Hospitals with painkillers…"

"I've been in a lot of hospitals, Nat. Must've picked something up…"

"A UTI?" Natasha asked him. She was loopy enough to smile. He set a hand on her shoulder, the one she wasn't rolled over on, and rubbed briskly up and down, trying to make her feel him through the hurt and the confusion.

"You gotta stay calm, babe. Don't you move. We keep your blood pressure down, that's real good for us."

"You wanna get me my yoga mat?"

Clint tugged off his jacket, threw it over her, knew it'd have bloodstains on it by the time he was finished. Two gunshot wounds, one in her leg, one in her torso. First, torso. He took one of her hands, stuffed it full of a rag, and pressed it to the wound.

"Direct pressure—bandage it in a moment." Belt off, wrapped around her wounded leg, he pulled it into a tourniquet. "Okay, this is gonna be no fun. Got a hand?" She held up her free hand. He took it with his free hand, rubbed a blunt thumb along the delicate tissue between her thumb and forefinger. The fingers were delicate, the palm small, the rigid scar tissue on her knuckles a surprise in all that softness. He rubbed that last, then eased her wounded leg up, onto an overturned stool, left it so that the wound was above her heart.

Nat didn't enjoy it one bit. Her breath hissed in and out of her, corded and strained, her lungs working like an engine out of gas. He kept her clenched hand in his as she shuddered through the worst of the pain, her other hand applying pressure to her wound, adding to the pain, he couldn't do anything to lessen it. She just had to take it.

"Nice and easy, baby girl, nice and easy. You're doin' great. Won't be long now. You just have to keep going a little bit longer and then we'll be done, alright?" There was no response. "Alright, sweetie?"

Nat blinked her eyes like a duckling trying to fly. It was a moment before they opened a crack. "Yeah… yeah… we gotta, gotta…"

"Pressure bandage, that's all. Then we're done, okay, _I promise."_

"Mmm-hmm." Nat's murmur was weak, almost childlike in its pitiable stubbornness. He quickly stroked her cheek, burning up with heat, wishing he could tell her the fucked-up kinda pride he took in how strong she was being, how amazing she was being, but there wasn't _time._

He checked her leg wound. Bleeding had stopped, great, fucking _finally_ some luck. He took his canteen, moved to clean it almost automatically before looking to Nat—even now it was hard not to think of her as some automaton, a Terminator assembled out of metal instead of a scared little girl.

He did look at her, saw her lift her free hand slightly, wondered if she was asking, _fuck it,_ he reached over and held onto it tightly as he poured water onto the wound, cleaned it one-handed, then slipped his hand away to put on the pressure bandage. It was only when he stopped holding her hand that she whimpered.

Chest wound, still bleeding, he had to pry her hand off it. He tossed the rag away— _Christ,_ it was bloody, redder than anything he'd ever seen, a bright shade he hadn't thought blood _was._ He slapped on the new bandage, and Nat went silent in a way fraught with tension—not her usual companionable silence, but something taut and suffering, a silence that shivered inside her as a scream. He added extra layers of gauze, almost all of it, they'd been traveling so damn _light,_ and taped it down as firmly as he dared, feeling Nat's eyes on him, seeking, desperate. But it stopped the bleeding, thank God, thank God…

Leg wound, good. Chest wound, good. Now he just had to worry about shock. Usually, that'd be the last thing he'd worry about with Nat, but she was fighting her own body on this. Blood loss and blocked airways and sickly sweet adrenaline hammering on her insides, all trying to fix her, all useless.

It made Clint grit his teeth with rage. What the fuck was she _doing here,_ that body shouldn't have scars, it should be in magazines, she should be a fucking pop star, even if she couldn't hit any note but an A, she should be lip-syncing bullshit Autotuned nonsense, showing up on Good Morning America, not _this._ She shouldn't be so broken that the only way she could live her life was breaking herself even more.

"Heat," Nat said, firmly, but divorced from her usual directness. It sounded almost like she was confidently sounding a word out. "Shock… blood loss… _heat."_

Now Clint remembered. He had to keep her warm, and not just with his jacket. Not with the way winters got in these fucking backwaters. He reached into his pack. They had enough of nothing, but they had a few chem-packs, and he used them all, turning about five square feet of the room into a sauna.

It didn't last—three of them crapped out immediately, and he didn't trust the other three. He laid down beside Nat without thinking about it, wrapping her up in his arms, his only concern being to avoid aggravating her wounds. The chest wound was high on her torso. He wrapped one arm around her stomach, the other around her shoulders, bicep supporting her head. Cradled her to him like she was a dog being taken to the vet.

Blood pressure, too. He had to keep her calm. He had to let her know she wasn't alone, and that wasn't anything to do with blood, he just knew too well what it was like to be hurt and dying and be a million miles away so it was like no one cared. One thing to think they cared, another to know.

He rearranged Nat's hair into something like her usual style, mopped her brow of sweat, took her hand again and rubbed it between his fingers, wondering if she could feel it. Finally, whatever dignity he was protecting, his or hers, ghosted. He petted her hair. He stroked her back. He spoke to her gently, lowly, telling her that it would be alright and that it would be alright and that it would be alright. He called her baby girl and sweetheart and darling, not knowing if he'd always thought of her that way or if they were names that had been born in the blood. He gave her sips of water with the little he hadn't used cleaning her rooms, just what he thought she could keep down. He held her so that she knew he wouldn't let her go.

At first she was stiff, even more tightly clenched than she looked—but with an awful insensateness to it. Like there was some core of angry stubbornness to her, holding her together, and her limbs, her face, they were at the furthest reaches of that central power, slack and aimless with the slightest trace of it.

The funny thing was, though, that when she loosened further, when that stiffness retreated into her, he thought it was conscious. She was looser, but the tightness going away was her choice, her conscious choice, an acceptance of the comfort he was giving her. She shook a little, breathed audibly with conscious exertion, but she was occupying herself, not pulling inward like her soul was in full retreat.

He felt her with him as he held her, a motionless receptacle for his care and attention, but one that pulled in all it could.

* * *

Natasha felt dizzy. Lightheaded. It was an unfamiliar sensation. She knew what it was to be crisp, clear, centered—nothing else. Alcohol didn't work on her. She studiously avoided drugs. In the morning, she awoke bright and early, no matter how long she'd stayed awake or how long she'd slept. Her mind, working sluggishly as it was, called up words for her. Anemia. Dehydration.

Clint forced a canteen to her lips. She wanted to tell him she could drink by herself, but her head swam and felt leaden at the same time—a lead balloon that managed to float—and he further secured his hand behind her head, holding it in place while he tipped the canteen up a little and allowed a trickle of water to wash away the dryness in her throat. He kept that up for about ten seconds, Natasha cursing him as she had to slowly suck the moisture down, but she had a vague memory of spitting it up when she'd tried to purge her thirst all at once.

It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense anymore.

He stopped the canteen away and set it carefully on the floor. Natasha could see that water was pouring down from a hole in the roof—it was raining?—and that was filling the canteen up.

"Alright," Clint said. "I think they've moved on."

Natasha was fastidious with his words, trying to fit them into her memories when everything was in motion, nothing solid. It was like trying to grab blackbirds, fit them together… the terrorists, they'd been in the neighborhood, "keep your head down," too dangerous to do battlefield surgery when there could be a firefight, wait, wait…

And something else. A feel, a warmth. She remembered the impulse of resistance, then something else, a slow surrender and a rush of calm, of safety. Ridiculous, feeling safe here, in this. She was never safe. She was who she was.

"I need to check the wounds," Clint was saying, taking his jacket off her, a sudden influx of cold drafty air...

Natasha felt like she was talking to him over a bad line, a slow connection, not getting his words until a few seconds after he'd said them. "Okay, doctor."

Clint looked up—he'd taken her silence for understanding, and now realized she was… what? Hallucinating? Natasha didn't have anything to hallucinate about. No white light to go to, no lost loved ones to talk to her. She was lost in her own body, trapped in it. Scars and cell doors.

* * *

Clint went slow unzipping her catsuit, not out of any seductive instinct—like he had much of _that—_ but because the faster and rougher he did this, the more he thought it would seem like a violation, even an assault. Not a good way to keep your nose in its proper place with Nat, not under any circumstances.

Natasha moaned slightly, then gave him a knowing look as he brought the zipper down. She didn't know where she was or what she was doing, he suspected, and that coupled with the blood everywhere and the artillery strikes in the distance made for a poor showing.

She wore a gray sports bra, quite a bit more modest than the adolescent fantasies most guys would imagine to go with the catsuit. Sodden with blood, the thick fabric pressed in on her cleavage, clinging to the red-spackled curvature of a heavy breast. It was almost enough to ruin boobs for him. Good thing he was a leg man.

Really, the bigger deal was finding out that Natasha had _freckles._ A whole field of them on her shoulders like gold dust in a pan of wet sand, spackling, _gilding_ her collarbone. He supposed it made sense—redhead—but then you had her perfect face, with its complete lack of pores, and you kinda thought her skin didn't obey the laws of normal people _at all._ Tiny hairs were standing up, shocked by the shift in temperature, and Clint resisted the absurd urge to pet them down.

He undid the wad of bandages he had left over her gunshot wound, peeling it back for examination. It wasn't bleeding anymore, not too much, just seeping out pus. An infection. In this mudhole, she'd probably gotten it the moment she'd been shot. He took a moment to assure Nat, petting her hair, whispering to her—he only knew a little Russian, because even he wasn't old enough for the Cold War, but he asked for directions and to use the toilet, as gently and softly as he could.

Then he drained the wound, Nat groaning—not even in pain, in _suffering._ She grasped at him like a wounded animal seeking comfort, burrowing into it, and he let her hang onto his arm as he wiped the pus away. He held the canteen over the wound, his thumb over its mouth, and squeezed to send the water out in a pressurized stream, washing the wound out. Natasha thrust her head back, eyes closed, _whimpering._ He paused again, took precious seconds to tell her it would be okay, little girl, okay, okay, okay, and put on a warm compress. The heat would vasodilate the capillaries around the wound, let the immune cells go straight to the infection.

He changed the bandage. He'd run out of Russian.

"I used to do this for my brother," he said, letting his mouth run without his brain leashing it—the way Nat said he usually talked. "Not bullet holes, though _that_ was a near thing. But poison ivy, sunburns, that kind of crap. Kinda weird, thinking back on it now. Probably shouldn't have been me taking care of him. Wasn't too good at it. But mom wasn't there, dad wasn't interested… seems like the only times we got along, now. When I could take care of him."

He went down to her leg. He'd ripped open the tear in the fabric before, but there was no helping it now. He cut her legging off neatly, keeping the lower fabric on her leg, checking the wound, cleaning it, changing the bandage. It at least didn't seem infected. He decided to chance stitching it up.

* * *

The pain was familiar. The cold was familiar. They were the backroads of her mind, old paths she could trace and follow. She'd been shot before, knifed before, bled, scarred over, let flies land on her infected wounds and maggots eat away her necrotic flesh. But it was never easy. She wasn't unfeeling, no matter what impression she wanted to give off. She was burning slowly, rationing her suffering as she felt it, preparing herself to save herself.

And it fell away.

"I'm here, I'm here…" Clint said to her, over and over again—surprisingly unimaginative for a man who brought a bow and arrow into battle.

He was sewing her up, the lancing needle barely a tickle in the numbness of her shock, the ache of her lost blood. Usually she'd do that herself. All it took was time. Time broke down everything but her. If she could get some place quiet, rest, then she could parcel out her healing. Stop her bleeding, clean her wounds, dress them, stitch them…

Clint was doing that for her.

Part of her was relaxing into that, lowering her guard, as she'd reluctantly learned to do with the doctors at SHIELD. In the Red Room, she'd been punished for not staying alert, even during treatment. If she wasn't careful as a bone was set, the doctor would deliberately misplace it.

And as a free agent, she couldn't trust doctors. When she needed fixing she couldn't do herself, she made sure not to allow them any anesthesia.

It was only at SHIELD that she'd let them put her under, because Clint had yelled at her for about five minutes about how goddamn stupid it was to stay awake while shrapnel was yanked out of her internal organs, and if nothing else, she'd wanted to reward him for going so long without repeating one curse word. The man's vocabulary was smarter than he was.

But she'd still never done that in the field. She could compartmentalize safety, convince herself that parts of her life were secure, lie that the world were safe if it were a certain time of a day or a certain place—just like anyone else. But not out _here._ Not when she was the Widow.

So part of her was relaxing and the other part was fighting it, following the scars, trying to stay cool and aloof and cerebral. She had been broken to be unbreakable. She could bend, but she could not change. She was still what the scared little girl in the Red Room had died to create. What she did to accommodate Clint, to put SHIELD at ease, was not her. She could not give up anymore, she could not weaken anymore, she physically _could not._

Yet she was. Natasha was shoring herself up against something _that shouldn't even be possible._

Clint had finished the stitches. The pain had receded, and the realization that she didn't have to steel herself against it so hard hit Natasha like a blow. She gasped in air, forced more stiffness into her body to compensate for the show of weakness, and that in turn rippled into her wounded flesh, her ruptured tissue, the strain on it bringing fresh pain to her body.

"Easy!" Clint said, steadying her shoulders with both hands, then cupping her face in his palms. He stroked her cheeks, brushed her hair back from her eyes, made her feel _centered_ in a way she couldn't explain—then, as if embarrassed of the intimacy, he pulled back slightly.

His puzzle ring was a bare glint as he reached down to her zipper and pulled it back up, gently closing her freshly bandaged chest wound inside the catsuit's confines. Engaged to be engaged… she couldn't remember where she was, but she could remember _that…_

The pain echoed, growing fainter with each repetition. Natasha couldn't keep up the stiffness, couldn't argue herself into taking pain over sleep. Tears laid siege to her—took her eyes, then her cheeks, then Clint's hands as he brushed them away. She felt the warmth of her own blood as it smeared on her face, mud and grit and grime.

He took the canteen, had her drink once more, then washed off his hands, her face, using and reusing a wadded up wet tissue until it was more stirring the dirtiness around then mopping it up. He threw it aside. Wouldn't bother with any further cleanliness. He was a dog, Natasha thought. A big friendly dog that couldn't help but love rolling around in the mud.

She released a shuddering sigh, a weak smile. Clint went to put the canteen back under the flow of water, but Natasha's mind was working too inefficiently to make the connection. She saw him turning away and thought he was leaving.

"Don't go," she said, her voice lighter than she remembered, smaller. She could've been gasping for breath.

"I'm not going anywhere," Clint told her, big and confident, his voice booming no matter how quiet it was. "And neither are you."

Natasha blinked her eyes, taking a long moment in the dark to find her center. Slipping, everything was slipping, nothing was solid. Soon the infection would _really_ set in, then her fever would be up. Then things wouldn't be slipping because there'd be nothing _to_ slip.

And she'd be defenseless. Except for Clint. She'd been trained never to rely on anyone, but how many times had he relied on her? Begrudgingly at first, with a mixture of macho arrogance and wary distrust, then with less and less reservation. He could do it so easily—let himself be helpless, admit _need._

They all could. Everyone at SHIELD could rely on each other and trust in one another, in their own paranoid way, and then there was her, a wolf among wolves. Alone on both sides— _slipping…_

He brought her more water. Natasha sipped slowly, killing her thirst before she'd noticed it. She could rely on Clint. That was another part of Natasha, her trust in him. And if the yearning for whatever it was that felt warm in this darkness wasn't enough to overcome her innate divorce—her _widowing—_ from all that was human, the fact that it was _Clint_ coupled with that, built on that, and she could _breathe._ How long had it been since she could _breathe?_

"Don't go," she said again, as if she were just learning the words, memorizing them by stale repetition, no meaning in the syllables except their ordered arrangement. But the way Clint looked at her, like he understood, provoked a tight feeling within her, strangling, suffocating, but with heat blossoming in the middle of it.

He laid down beside her, moving so slowly she'd almost worry he was injured himself, so careful was he not to touch her, not to jostle her. He was laying on his side, to her left, facing her. He brought his right arm out from under his body, guiding it under her head, gently lifting her skull so he could ease his arm under it, crook the elbow so his hand came to her face. He held her chin and he stroked his thumb over it, his fingers through her tousled red hair, over and over.

She was wrapped in him—lying on him, being caressed by him, his body even pressing in on her from her left side like a shield. Natasha felt wetness in her eyes, compelling her to blink away the tears. Clint's left hand came over, fingers wiping them away, swabbing little riverbeds out of her dirty face. The fingers of his right hand cupped her chin, its thumb stroking her cheekbone.

"I'm staying right here," he said, his voice so low she felt it through his body more than she heard it. "Right here."

"I… выеть… I need a tissue."

She hadn't even realized her nose would get stuffed up from her crying jag… all she could hope was that Clint would assume it was from the pain… he reached into a pocket, brought out one of the tissues he'd been so stingy with, and actually held it to her nose instead of giving it to her. The feeling in her gut tightened, warmer and softer, but _taut._ She blew her nose and Clint wiped her nostrils and tossed the napkin away—they were being very inconsiderate houseguests of whoever owned this dilapidated shack. Natasha laughed at her own thought and tried to tell Clint, but it came out all Cyrillic. Clint shushed her.

"Shhh… later… just rest now. I'm right here. You can relax. You don't have to worry. Just close your eyes. Go on. Close them."

Natasha started to, but couldn't. She would look into Clint's eyes and see them beaming at her, warm and friendly and _concerned,_ over _her._ He would get himself killed to save her, to protect her. She wished she could explain to him what a waste that would be, but she couldn't, and the knowledge that he wouldn't be dissuaded from protecting her by all the logic in the world, all the red in her ledger, made the feeling tighten into a fist.

It wasn't choking her. It was squeezing in on something inside her, some unshared sadness that extended through her from bone to pore, only this _warmth_ was grinding it down, pulling it into one tiny ball. It had filled her up. Without it, she was empty, and something else was flowing in. _Everything_ was flowing in, filling her up: her trust in Clint, her safety with him, a thousand sorrows and regrets that had been patiently waiting their time, and she weakly fiddled her hands and tried to pretend she wasn't just about bursting.

"You have to sleep," Clint said patiently. "We got your wounds all patched up. There's no need for you to be awake. You're tired and you might not get a chance to sleep later, so you might as well sleep now."

Natasha closed her eyes. She felt an odd sense of balance, all the strange new feelings crowding into each other, pushing on one another. And the most overpowering one was the simple tactile feeling of Clint's warmth pushing in on her coldness. She relaxed into that, trusted in that, and everything shouting for attention was very quiet.

"Close your eyes," Clint whispered—she thought the sound of the muscles of his jaw were louder than the volume at which he spoke. Almost teasingly, he laid the first two fingers of his left hand on her forehead and drew them down her nose in a swath, brushing her eyelashes gently, cajoling her to sleep.

Natasha shut her eyes and sighed contentedly. She hurt, there were a million thoughts crying out for her to think them, but Clint's lungs were pumping, his heart was beating. She could feel his pulse, his breath, pulling her into their slow, supple rhythm. His fingers stroked the locks of hair splayed over her sweaty face, distracting her demons for her. This felt familiar, but she couldn't remember it. And she remembered everything.

"Батя," she said, her pronunciation slurred and uncertain, as if her mother language was her second one. "Батя."

"Yeah, yeah," Clint agreed readily. "Lots of Батя."

Natasha grinned, glancing at his face one last time. He'd mangled the word, even by her almost inebriated standards. "Батя," she corrected him.

Her eyes closed again, this time for good. She felt… _sleepy._ Not tired, not worn out, but a simple calming and calming and calming that pressed the energy down all throughout her body. Not the usual cessation of consciousness, or the abrupt interruption of being knocked out. She could feel herself falling asleep.

"That's it," Clint said, and she could only hear him on the most subconscious of levels. Perhaps she was dreaming his speech. "That's it. Sleep. Sleep, little girl. You earned it."

"Ба… тя…" she said, her lips forming the word only out of newfound, addictive habit. It sounded good saying it. It sounded _right. "_ Б…"

Her deep breaths were replaced with even deeper ones, her head turned to the side, face nuzzled slightly into Clint's bare arm. With his other hand, he pulled his jacket up over both of them, tucking it under his body and holding the other end down to trap as much warmth as possible.

* * *

With Nat asleep, Clint took his attention off her, scanning the surroundings for any sign of life. As tempting as Nat was making a nap look, there weren't exactly a lot of other volunteers for guard duty.

Nat made a slightly keening noise, and Clint turned back to her—it was almost as if she'd noticed his attention wander off her, even in her sleep. He put his hand to her hair and lightly massaged her temple, tried to straighten her hair back into some semblance of couture. He knew how she liked looking pretty.

Natasha moaned contentedly, turning her face deeper into his arm, nuzzling into it so hard he wondered how she wasn't waking herself up with friction on his arm hair.

Then she did something _very_ strange…

Moving slowly, staggered, Nat drew one hand up her body. Clint almost could've taken it for a seductive gesture, only Nat seemed far too guileless at the moment for that. Of course, that was usually the idea with a seduction.

Then she brought her hand to her mouth—those perfect lips that could torture a man into talking by chewing on the end of a pencil—and stuck her thumb inside her mouth. There, she gritted her teeth lightly into the knuckle, clearly not hard enough to wake herself, and then her cheeks hollowed before quickly returning to normal.

It struck Clint as being oddly adorable, somehow.

He held Nat close, tight, watching over her as she sucked her thumb.


	2. Chapter 2

From there, Natasha's memory ran in fits and starts. She didn't remember Clint holding her, comforting her, so much as she remembered the safety of it. It had the lingering feeling of a dream upon waking. She remembered more the moments of separation from him: the evac, the doctors, times in the hospital room when she had to be so quiet and calm and just _ask_ where he was instead of screaming. He'd gone to be debriefed; he didn't know how much she wanted him there.

But he knew _something,_ which was more than most could claim. He came about after the debrief was finished and sat with her in intensive care, stubbornly seeming to meditate on her recovery, just pure concentrated _concern_ over her that Natasha drank in like the sun after years in the shadows.

She stayed quiet, convalescent, centering herself while he watched over her. She supposed it was sadistic, letting him worry about her, gauging his anguish like it was some kind of test, but no one had ever accused her of being cruel or not being cruel. Just efficient.

This wasn't efficient. She had a longing that she could resist, but not shake. While the emotion wasn't overwhelming, the curiosity was. She actually missed being wounded, teetering on the brink of death, simply because it had excused so much. It'd let Clint hold her. It'd let her be held.

Apparently, the furious concentration under her eyelids had become too much for even Clint not to notice. "There she is."

Natasha took a page from his book: a short, noncommittal burst of communication. "Hey."

"Hey."

Natasha didn't try to move, but cast eyes down to her bandaged torso. "How bad is it?" She already knew—she was good at knowing how far her body had been pushed—but Clint would tell her of any complications, no bullshit.

"I think you're gonna miss the spring formal," he informed her gravely.

"And I already picked my dress out," Natasha pouted. She'd be grounded for months, recuperating, then recertifying herself—God help her, psych evals. This was why she didn't like getting shot. Even after they took the bullet out, it was still _such_ a big deal with people.

"I'll be taking a couple of weeks' vacation time," Clint said. He shrugged. "Better that than breaking in a new partner. You're welcome at the apartment, if you can go without sponge baths."

Natasha smiled to herself. She had her own place, and appreciated the privacy of it. Some wounds she liked to suffer in silence with. But Clint always offered—sometimes she'd taken him up on it to pacify him. Guy seemed to get a kick out of reaching out to her, and since a lot of the time he was banged up worse than she was, she let him have it.

But here he was, with just a scratch, and the offer stood, and she felt herself smile and she felt herself nod. Just while she healed, rested up. The doctors would only release her if she was out of intensive care, so at any point, she could declare herself cured and go back to her own little safehouse.

She wondered if Clint had given it some clever name, like 'the Widow's Web'. Probably. She'd ask him, but it would hurt to laugh.

"Okay," Clint said, trying to act like her agreeing wasn't some big deal. "I'll tell Laura to make up the guest room." It was a walk-in closet neither of them used. Laura had the least shoes of any woman Natasha had ever known. No wonder he'd married her.

"You need to buy that farm already," Natasha told him.

"Fury needs to give me a raise."

"I agree to one sleepover at your place and you start believing in miracles…"

* * *

She felt vulnerable. She felt alone. And the last time she _hadn't_ had been bleeding out on a battlefield.

She didn't know what was in her veins anymore. She missed him, she missed knowing that he could take her in her arms and hold her and no matter how bad she felt, that feeling would go away. Fear, pain, regret… she'd thought they were all so big, so omnipresent, but they could be dispelled. She just had to replace them with something.

Every hospital bed at SHIELD had a tablet built into it. No matter what Fury had said to get the budget for them, the main thing they were used for was the Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video links that came up as soon as she turned it on. But Natasha bypassed them, going into SHIELD's databases, looking up Clint's files.

She knew most of it, but she looked into his past mission reports anyway, from before they'd been paired. She knew most of _that_ too, from the secretive osmosis of the intelligence community. Everything known, nothing proved. It was mildly enlightening to get the facts, or at least the officially unofficial facts, in black and white.

"Light reading?" Nick Fury asked. For a big black guy in a full leather coat, he could move quietly when he wanted to. "Guess I should've renewed some of our magazine subscriptions."

"They're not classified," Natasha replied, leaving unsaid that if they were, and she wanted the databases hacked, Fury wouldn't know about it the way he knew what she was using her tablet for.

"Still, you've never cared who you were partnered with before."

"I've never been partnered before."

"Yes, you have. For months now. Going on years."

 _Clint._ "I've never been partnered this long before."

"So you want to get to know him?"

"I know him," Natasha said quietly, though she wasn't sure who she was assuring. She did know him… know everything there was to know about him… but like Tolkien's Hobbits, while that may have taken a single day, after years he could still surprise her. Had surprised her.

She wanted to _explain_ him, an answer for a question she couldn't ask.

"You want to get to know him, I suggest talking to him." Nick stood up from the shadowy chair in the corner of the room that the doctors had to put there for dramatic staging like that. He came into the light. "When I hired you, I understood I was getting a war machine. No personal bullshit. You and Clint make a good team. I'd hate for someone to get their hands on a nuke because you two shelved your friendship bracelets."

"He's engaged," Natasha told him.

"He's a lot of things. So are you. I don't care about most of them, so much as I care about you _stopping_ being a good agent." He straightened the lapels of his coat. "Something to learn from the movies. The woman who shows up trying to steal some other woman's man? She's usually the bad guy."

"What about the bald guy with the eyepatch?"

Fury's good eye widened. "Touché."

* * *

Clint's apartment had been used mainly for showering and sleeping, and holding whatever knick-knacks Clint had collected. Until he'd met Laura, he'd lived for the job as much as Natasha had. Now he was engaged and they were trying to work out a farm to buy—they'd always wanted to live in the country. Clint always being called away on missions had made escrow hard, but he was determined to settle it while he was on vacation.

Natasha should've resented that that was all that life had taken from him, when it had barely _given_ anything to her, but she couldn't. She envied the apartment, even in its disarray, with Laura's things packed into boxes because they were just going to move again once the farm was settled and her old apartment had had the ceiling fall in. In the chaos, there was a warm pressure that pushed in on Natasha, soothed the ache she was just becoming aware of.

Laura had a huge hug for Clint, but she took mercy on Natasha, with her crutch supporting a limping leg and the continual low abrasion of bandages under loose clothes. She took Natasha's free hand and clasped it in both of hers, leaning in to kiss Natasha on the cheek, the pressure overwhelming, grinding into Natasha, crushing her a moment, then Laura stepped away with her just-right perfume and the light warmth of her touch and was once more almost that distant image Natasha had once thought of her as, just A Clint Thing, not someone under Natasha's skin.

"Look at me—I'm like a little girl excited because her best friend gets to stay over," Laura said, rubbing her arms. "I've got goosebumps! There's a room made up for you, we've got the TV if you want to watch something, you can order something off the On Demand…"

"She knows how a TV works, babe," Clint said gently.

"Of course you do!" Laura's eyes flicked nervously to Natasha, anxious, but smiling to override it. "Can I get you anything?"

"I just need to sit down," Natasha said, easing her crutch forward.

Laura gave it a wide berth. "Great! Well, there's dinner on the stove, which I should get back to, so don't get too comfortable, you are about to be well-fed!" She started to turn. "I mean, do get comfortable, you don't have to go to the kitchen right this minute—we don't have a dining room—I think I smell smoke."

She fled to the kitchen.

Natasha heaved the crutch forward again. "Please don't tell me I intimidate her, I don't think I can manage to be less threatening than this."

"She's just nervous about making a good impression." Clint shadowed her, ready to swoop out and catch her if she slipped. "She likes you a lot—maybe something to do with saving my life a bunch of times—she wants to be your BFF."

"The job's hers if she wants it," Natasha said cavalierly, finally managing to erect herself before the sofa. Transitioning from her rickety standing to a sit seemed suddenly daunting. She had managed it on the car ride over, but she'd had much more energy. The low-level pain, the sweeping transitions between languor and movement—it all sapped her strength, left her weak as a kitten at a moment's notice.

Clint's hand gently settled on her shoulder. "Little help?"

Natasha threw her head down, feeling a ridiculous urge to pout, to register some complaint with her wounded fatigue. "Please," she said instead, keeping all resentment of the situation out of her voice.

Clint's touch was unerringly gentle, nonsexual, almost businesslike but for the care he took. He steadied her, held her, lowered her slowly down to the couch. And it was all the more intimate for how she let herself be touched and he only touched her that much, his hands firm and steady, warm and soft. She felt the calluses of his bow fingers as they trailed off her flesh, leaving her sitting comfortably.

"You don't hesitate to call out when you need to get up, even if you think you can handle it," he told her. Firm but caring. Giving orders because they were in her best interest.

Natasha felt something swell inside her, a muscle clenching after all the exercise it had got in the field, hearing his soft words and being held by him. God, what was she feeding inside herself? What was she letting grow that she responded even this much to him?

"Thank you," she said as he went to check on Laura, dinner. He half-turned, clearly surprised that she'd bothered to thank him. Of course, it was just a function of their partnership, one more way he watched her back and she watched his. Didn't need to be said, and excessive politeness didn't exactly fit her profile. But it felt good to say.

"Welcome," he nodded, and left her to it.

Natasha hugged the crutch to her chest, the hominess of the space pressing in on her, her curiosity overwhelming and something else.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to know what this feeling was or if that was just an excuse for more of it.

* * *

Natasha's musculature pivoted between stiffness and the loose vagaries of pain pills taken at the recommended dosage—twice what Natasha usually indulged in. But it didn't feel right to have the jarring shocks of pain that came with unmedicated healing. She sat through dinner, hazy, loopy, and just tried to keep up with the questions Laura asked to draw her into conversation. Short, clipped answers. She wasn't foggy enough not to notice Clint put his hand on Laura's, silently urging her to lay off. She wanted to be a part of the conversation, but she didn't know how. She just ended up listening as attentively as she could while Laura and Clint went back and forth.

Then it was time for bed, at least for her. Clint volunteered to help her to the walk-in closet and its cot, and she acquiesced. She was surprised when Clint brought her to the master bedroom instead.

"Clint," she said weakly, struggling for linked words with a full stomach and a pilled bloodstream dragging her eyelids down. "It's your home."

"I'll sleep on the couch," he said. "Laura'll take the cot. It'll be fine. Good reminder to me to get that farm bought up." He saw her marshalling to argue the point. "Stretch out, Nat. You've earned it."

He set her down on the bed and there wasn't much she could do but sit there, clutching her crutch. A few minutes passed; she was ready to relinquish the bed if they asked for it back, because surely Laura wouldn't go along with this. And Laura came in, but it was only to grab a book of hers.

She looked at Natasha with fond reproach, meant for Clint, not for her. "I'm guessing Clint forgot a few things."

"I didn't ask for the bed," Natasha said defensively. Didn't ask for his friendship, his care, didn't ask to be welcomed into their _home…_

"Do you need any help undressing?" Natasha could see Laura realize how that sounded. "Clint's come home with more than a few bandages, and I know it's harder than it looks, getting some things off…"

"Yes," Natasha said. She was letting pain into her voice, displaying it for Laura, and she didn't know _why._ "Please help me? It _hurts."_

"Poor dear," Laura said, and went to her. She knelt down to untie Natasha's shoes, pull them off her feet. Then her socks. Then she undid the belt on Natasha's baggy pants, pulled that out of its loops, then the pants down off Natasha's long legs.

Natasha blushed, being displayed to Laura this way. She'd shown a lot more to people a lot more interested, but this felt _blunt._ Intimate. Laura stood, and put her hands on the hem of Natasha's shirt.

"Can you lift your arms for me?"

"I'll try," Natasha said, pouting now, still not sure why she was drawing all the possible pain from this and putting it into her words, deluging Laura with it. It was this place, these people, she thought.

Laura reached out to her, brushing a lock of hair back behind Natasha's ear, stroking her cheek, then Natasha lifted her arms for her and Laura helped her out of her shirt. Natasha wasn't wearing a bra, and after a moment, she crossed her arms over her breasts. She didn't mind people looking at her—it was body parts, nothing more—but she found herself wondering at Laura's reaction to her body too much to want to allow it.

"I have something that should fit you," Laura said. "It's nice and loose, you'll barely feel it." Her voice lowered to a whisper as she went to the closet to search. "Sometimes, I run it through the dryer, then wear it to bed all warm. When Clint's on a mission, it's a little like having him back where he belongs on the other side of the bed."

Natasha felt a stab of guilt, as if she were intentionally taking Clint away from this woman.

Laura retrieved a sweatshirt in Clint's size from the closet, the name of his alma mater written across the front. Natasha had enough of a grasp of human psychology to imagine the little cold war that had played out, Laura stealing it from Clint, Clint stealing it back, loving it like men could only love worn things, but letting her have it because he realized she needed it more than he wanted it.

Laura pulled it over Natasha, popping her head through the neckhole in a burst of scattered red hair, then tugging the ends down to Natasha's thighs, even helping her pull her arms through the sleeves. There was no lingering warmth to it, lying cold in a closet, clean and waiting, but Natasha could smell Clint on it, smell Laura, like Laura had sat in his lap and snuggled under the sweater with him, her lithe body distending the front, her head poking up through the loose neckhole with his. Close and warm and together.

"Here we go, sweetie," Laura said, dragging Natasha with impressive muscle and impressive care to the head of the bed, laying her down on the pillows, pulling the covers out from under her and then up to her chin. "Is that alright?"

"Uh-huh." It was the drugs, it was her tiredness. She was sluggish and warm, covered in a soft sweater and softer sheets. Everything was smooth and soft. Her wound was a distant star in a far-off galaxy, the light barely reaching her. And Laura was the sun.

Laura lingered over her, stroking Natasha's hair again, her fingers on Natasha's cheek and her lips, cajoling Natasha to be comfortable in this unfamiliar bed.

"Get a good night's sleep, alright? Your phone's on the nightstand, if you need anything just call Clint or me. Promise you will?"

"Yes," Natasha said, as if she'd never defied interrogations that had sent pain blazing through her every pore.

"Good girl," Laura said. "I'm gonna fix you a real big breakfast, so make sure you go to sleep right away. No playing on your phone; I want you up bright and early to get breakfast while it's warm, mmm?"

Natasha nodded faithfully to her question. "Yes," she said again. It felt so good to say yes to her. Yes to this person who only wanted to take care of her. The only person she'd ever met who cared more about her than some mission. No wonder Clint was in love with her.

"Laura?" she asked, her voice younger than ever, softer than she could even recognize.

"Yes?" Laura replied, sweeter than anyone had ever spoken to Natasha. Even the people trying to seduce her would _want_ something from her.

"When was the last time you felt safe? Really safe, like there's nothing in the world that could hurt you. Nothing in all the world…" She didn't usually repeat herself, but Laura had to understand what she meant. Even in the most secure safehouse, you still knew there were people somewhere who wanted you dead. This was the kind of safe when you didn't know there _was_ such a thing as death, a narcotic level of thought that Natasha hadn't known existed until…

"When Clint's here, I always feel safe."

"He makes me feel safe too. But, not the kind of safe I mean. The safe that… lets you sleep as a baby?" It made her feel like she was back in the Red Room, struggling against languages, not having the right word to say how she felt.

Laura sat down on the bed. Natasha's heart raced. She didn't understand, but she felt safer—like she wished Laura would stay there forever like a sentinel, and also not safe. Very, very unsafe, a dog growling at her and Natasha wishing it would just lunge so the tension would be over. A little part of her wanted to be devoured.

"I think I know what you mean," Laura said. "Being with Clint, I know he can take care of me, how he wants to take care of me… but I also know all the things—shit, just _some_ of the things that want to hurt us. And when he's gone, I worry for him so much more than for myself. I guess it's one of those lost innocence things. I wouldn't go back to not knowing Clint for all the world, but back before I knew him—hell, back before 9/11—I remember being a little girl and all I had to do was feel safe was run to my daddy and put out my arms. He'd pick me up and hold me and I'd think about how nothing could get to me, all the way up there, with those big arms around me like a wall."

Laura rubbed at her eyes. She was crying a little, and Natasha hated herself for that, even as she hung on every word that Laura bled.

"He's gone now," Laura said, her voice slightly stiff, like it didn't want to be used. "You can't ever go back to not knowing how the world works. But at least I know there are a lot of people like him in the world, good people… people like you."

Natasha bit her lip, thinking there was no way she could possibly give Laura the comfort she'd described. She could never be that safe.

"Would you go back to feeling that way? If you could?"

Laura wiped her eyes. "Maybe for a little while. A night or two. But I want to go forward too. Clint and I, we both want kids. He thinks I'll make a good mom. I know he'll make a good dad." She smiled at Natasha. "Maybe you should get used to being Aunt Nat."

* * *

In the night, Natasha wondered whether she would hear them making love, if she strained her ears hard enough. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hear or not.

* * *

A creaking door jarred her sixth sense. It spoke to how comfortable she was and how safe she felt that it took the comparatively loud sound to wake her: not the feet shuffling at the door, the knob turning, the disturbance in the air patterns that came with a warm body on the other side of the door. Still, she woke, and her training wouldn't let her slip back under without ascertaining who it was, even though she _knew_ who it was, who it had to be.

She opened her eyes, and striding out of slumber and into wakefulness caused a dozen different aches and pains to bloom, rallying on the edge of her consciousness and rushing her as she stirred from barely moving insensateness.

"You awake there, sleeping beauty?" Clint called, knowing she was, able to register the keen awareness of her psyche through some charge in the air. Then he noticed her pain and was quick to drop his good humor, moving to the nightstand and popping the cap on her pill bottle.

He went to the bathroom, filling a glass of water from the sink, and brought it back. He gave her the pills, then tilted the glass to her lips. Natasha could not even protest over him holding the cup for her.

"That's it," Clint said, as she steadily swallowed, not too fast and not too slow, but precisely the rate of the level glass he had at her lips. "That's it… nice and easy…"

"More," Natasha said after she'd drained the glass. "Please, more…"

Clint went back to the bathroom, filled the glass again, and when he came back, Natasha was conscious enough to hold the glass herself, drain it again. He took it from her before she could try to set it down on the nightstand, her coordination still off.

"Time is it?" Natasha muttered, feeling far groggier than she should've. The windows were bright with daylight, and she'd gone to sleep quickly enough, she should've been well-rested.

"11 AM," Clint told her. "Laura went and made breakfast anyway. She doesn't know how much you like sleeping in."

Natasha closed her eyes, trying to push the pain down, center herself until the pills did their work. She was too sluggish to be sharp and too pained to be clear-headed… the worst of both worlds.

Clint smiled at her, reassuring, but his words were almost brusque except for the concern in his voice. "Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

Natasha had a nightmare vision of him helping her out of bed, carrying her to the toilet, sitting her down and waiting outside while she tinkled. She also knew that the only reason she didn't agree was that she didn't need to go. "Uh-uh."

"You hungry?"

She nodded.

"Think you can make it to the kitchen?"

Natasha almost sniffled before she shook her head. The pain was still too present, pressing down on her like weights. The yards to the kitchen seemed insurmountable. Even if he supported her, the simple shift of her weight to and fro would be unbearable. She needed to stay here, in bed, where it was safe from the pain.

"Okay then," Clint said, incredibly little judgment in her voice, like she hadn't been the best agent he'd ever seen before _this._ "I'm gonna go warm up some food and bring it in for you, alright? Breakfast in bed for the Russian princess. Think you can keep down about a plate?"

Natasha started to nod before it occurred to her that using her voice was more mature. "Yes," she said, sounding almost herself to herself.

"Alrighty. Be right back. Don't try to move."

Natasha laid there, wishing he'd come back. She wondered how many times he'd checked in on her while she was still too asleep, too tired, to notice. She wondered if Laura had checked in on her as well. She wondered why the pain was so much easier to bear when one of them was there, tending to her, almost mothering her—with her own entreaties playing into it, begging them to coo over her injuries and coddle her still more.

She imagined Laura lying in bed with Clint, wrapped in him like she was in his stupid sweater, and wondered if either of them knew how lucky they were.

True to his word, Clint returned in a few minutes, bearing a tray like the one the hospital had used. She wondered if they'd bought it just for her or if Clint had used it while recovering from various injuries.

He set the tray down over her, careful not to spill anything atop it. There was a glass of water, utensils, and a single plate of eggs, bacon, and toast. They smelled delicious despite the secondhand heat of the microwave.

"Thank you," Natasha said, and took hold of her fork and knife in numb hands. Despite her wayward coordination, she was able to summon up enough fortitude to eat, at least, though Clint was there to step in. When she reached for the water, he took hold of it for her and held it to her mouth, helping her drink. She wondered if she should feel embarrassed by the excessive attention. He could've just brought her a straw…

"Nat," he said, stealing a snip of her bacon. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"I don't have anything better to do."

Clint reached for another piece of bacon, and though Natasha made no move to stop him, he pulled his hand back and kneaded both together in his lap. "When you were shot, you kept saying a word, a single word, over and over again. Бата…"

"Батя," Natasha corrected.

"Yeah, that," Clint said. "I was just wondering what it meant."

Natasha was silent. She indicated the water. Clint helped her drink until it was gone.

"If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. The reason I didn't look it up was, well, I figured whether you want me to know—"

She hated him thinking she didn't trust him. "It means 'papa,'" Natasha said. "I was calling out for my papa."

Clint smiled ruefully. "I figured as much. People say all kinds of stuff when adrenaline collides with shock. I was just curious, I suppose."

"Can I have some more water?" Natasha asked.

"Sure. Anything you like."

Clint took the glass with him and thankfully went to get water from the Britta in the refrigerator, not the tap.

It was when he was gone that Natasha let the feelings play over her face. Her lips tremble, her eyes squeeze shut, as she remembered a little more of how she had felt that rainy night and let it bury itself in her consciousness as she forced her mind away from it, into the taste of the bacon and the texture of the toast.

She didn't even remember her father. But she found herself wishing that if she had been raised by him, he would've been very much like Clint Barton.


	3. Chapter 3

Coulson came to visit her, bringing flowers, which even Clint wasn't cheesy enough to do. Still, she'd known him long enough to know it wasn't a romantic gesture, just a gentlemanly one. He'd do the same for Fury himself, probably, and that was as good an incentive as any to get better. She wanted to be alive to see that.

"Bad luck catching some bullets. Thought I'd see if there's anything I can do."

"Better food," she said. "Clint cooks when Laura's at work."

"I'll bring some lasagna in. Don't think the nurse'll mind."

"Are you kidding? She's worse than the North K."

"Blake's wrapping up the op you faded on. At least the intel you got out let them rule out—"

"Stop," Natasha said. "I can't care about that right now."

Coulson let out a bemused noise. "And here I thought you were too workaholic for me to even bother trying to talk you out of keeping up with current events."

Natasha adjusted herself, raising her body a little and sitting up against the pillows and headboard of the bed. "I used to be a mercenary. My livelihood depended on my work ethic. Now I've got a cushy government job."

"You don't look very cushed out."

"That cannot be real slang."

"Who even knows anymore? You want to have a non-work-related conversation with me, or would you rather wait for Clint to clock in?"

She gave him a look. "I talk about things besides work with people besides Barton."

"Name one."

"Bobbi. She's nice."

"Bobbi does deep-cover assignments, she's incommunicado seven months a year."

"Lots of friends have boundaries."

"There's boundaries and then there's the Berlin Wall."

"You're such a yenta, you know that?"

"Writing reports on Stark gets boring. I have to find something to occupy my time."

"Wanna invade Cuba?"

* * *

Dinner was earlier than usual. Clint and Laura were having an evening out, tickets for a play Laura had been looking forward to, so they would be rushing through the meal. Natasha made the trip from the bed to the impromptu kitchen, able to move much more freely than she had that morning. She wondered if in all the procedures and tests, the Red Room hadn't done something more to her than break her. Was her current good health just a mixture of steely will and clean living, or did she heal faster than other people? Normal people?

Like she needed one less thing in common with them.

She ate, and was surprised when she was told the food was Clint's recipe. Apparently Laura was teaching him to cook, and he was improving drastically under her tutelage.

It was as she rose, Laura preparing for the night out while Clint cleared the table, that she grabbed her stomach and keeled back down into her seat. Clint vaulted to her, taking her shoulder, steadying her, "Hey, hey! Are you alright?"

Summoned by his psychic distress—they really were on some mutual wavelength—Laura came to the doorway, her make-up only half applied.

"I'm fine," Natasha said, clutching at Clint, trying to pull herself up him, and he reluctantly helped her to her feet to keep her from hurting herself too much in the attempt. "I just felt… dizzy. It's only a few feet back to the bed. Your apartment isn't that big."

Her legs shook. Clint slotted one arm under them, picking her up even as she went boneless. He carried her back to the bedroom, her fingers embedded in his clothes, her eyes drinking in the concern on his face, the sheer _feeling_ that he was giving to her without any effort at all to cajole it out of him.

"We can't leave her like this," Laura said, the rare woman who thought nothing of her man laying a beautiful woman down on her bed and helping her out of her slippers.

"Can you get refunds on the tickets?"

"No, but surely you don't want to go while she's—"

"Of course not," Clint said. "You go, you're the one who wanted to see it, I'll stay here and keep an eye on her."

"You can both go," Natasha said, straightening herself on the bed. "I'm fine. I just overextended myself a little, I'll nap, it'll be fine."

"Uh-huh," Clint said, reaching for the covers to draw them over her. Natasha felt her heart go from double-time to triple as he tucked her in. "I'm sure she's fine. I'm sure she is. But do you want me to go with you?"

"I don't even know if I'm going." Laura put the back of her hand on Natasha's forehead—those two younger siblings Natasha had read about had been good prep for being a mom. "She's not running a fever, but I don't want to leave her alone. She's supposed to be in the hospital, right? They'd have nurses on duty…"

"I don't want to ruin your date," Natasha protested. "Go. Laura, go. You too, Clint."

"I—" Clint sat down on the bed beside her. "Would've probably fallen asleep there anyway. It's a long play and I'm old, I get tired. I'll stay here."

He looked to Laura for confirmation. She nodded tersely. "I'll see if I can find a scalper to buy a ticket off me real quick."

"That's good thinking, hon."

* * *

Clint was a sharp guy. He didn't let on, so quiet was he, so rowdy when other people could be serious, but you didn't get into SHIELD on good luck and perfect attendance. So it was a testimony to how worried he'd been over Nat that he didn't tumble to what she'd done until Laura was long out the door.

He came into the room, registering that she'd undressed, her clothes at the foot of the bed, the sheets tangled into her body from her knees to her neck, her hair further obscuring her face, but it didn't slow down his indignation, tempered as it was with laconic irony.

"I appreciate you trying to get me out of some boring play," he said, "but I don't like being dishonest with Laura."

"What was dishonest?" Natasha asked, still driving her face into the pillow in a pretense of sleep, her toes working lazily against the mattress, corded muscles in her calves stirring like piano strings being tuned. "I wanted you to stay with me, not go with her. I said so. It was alright with Laura. It's alright with you."

"You didn't exactly say that, did you?"

"I'm indirect. Bet you and Laura felt really good about yourselves, getting to take care of me—"

"Do not sass me, Nat. You're in my home."

Natasha bit her lower lip, hiding her face a little, suddenly embarrassed. Hurt. "So why didn't you say something? You must've known _something_ was off."

"Didn't want to embarrass you in front of Laura."

"You wanted to stay with me, just like I wanted you to stay."

"Play's not getting good reviews. But I _did_ want to go with Laura."

"You want to stay with me too."

"I spend plenty of time with you, Nat. But you're not my pet, okay, I'm not obliged to take you on walks."

"What am I to you, then?"

" _Jesus."_ Clint rubbed the back of his neck. "You're my partner, Nat."

"Nothing else."

"We're not having this conversation."

"It's not a conversation. It's facts. What I want. What you want."

"What Laura wants," Clint needled her.

Natasha pulled the bedsheet up her legs. "Laura isn't here."

"Goddamnit, Nat… goddamnit, you're making me have to tell her this."

"Look at me, Clint," Natasha said, drawing the sheet over her thighs. It whispered over her flesh like he was touching them already. Like she needed to be touched. Just one good contact between his flesh and hers would make everything simple, would tell her what she was to him and he was to her and what she _was._ "

She wondered if he missed Laura. She did. She hated that feminine absence more than anything else, but she was the Black Widow and she ate what she loved.

The sheet touched her pubic hair. The red curls tingled with the fleeting contact, the cessation of the touch, the sudden ionic shift from being covered to open air. The same oxygen ran between them, but now Clint's eyes were on them and that made all the difference. He was gazing at her womanhood, the femininity of her fleshy hips, and she had never felt more like a woman than under his eyes. She could tell he was getting excited. His eyes darkened and the bulge in his fly could not be hidden.

"You can look at me," Natasha said, not trying to seduce, but the words came out honeyed because they were her words to him and she could not speak any other way. "See me. I'm here. I'm here."

She reached down to her cunt, spread open the petals of the flower, let him see the first steps of the journey inside her. His member twitched as he watched her stir her sex, open it to him. He unzipped his fly, his eyes fixed on her engorged clit, the dunes of the desert bedding that could only be her breasts raising through the satin.

Her hand was buried in her groin as if trying to hide it, her legs spread wide and her fingers showing him how much she could take. She wantonly pushed a finger inside herself, stroked, rocking her body into the contact and out of it, fucking herself to show him how he could do it.

She'd never shown herself to Clint like this, never displayed herself to any man in this way. This wasn't a performance. This was how she touched herself. This was how she responded to him. And the sight drove him wild. She could see the look in his eyes and it made her flush with pleasure. He was looking. She was being seen.

His briefs were out of the way now, his hard manhood pulsating out in the air like some weapon he'd drawn to defend himself. She smiled and it was hysterical at best. "Jerk off for me," she muttered.

"What?" Clint asked, his hand near his cock, but not touching it. Afraid it would go off.

"Don't come, but jerk off for me. Play with your prick. Show me… show me it gets to you too."

"Natasha, I can't." The lust in her eyes was irresistible. "This is wrong." He fisted his shaft and his hand shook like he was trying to hold it still. "This is…"

"Please, Clint. Please. You said you would take care of me."

Almost unconsciously, his hand did a slow pump along the flesh.

They touched themselves like they were touching each other, their cheeks flushed and their breath rasping with excitement.

The blush on Natasha's face deepened as she read his wishes off his expression, complied with them. She licked her lips slowly, flashed her reddened pussy to inspire him.

"Finger yourself," Clint said gruffly. "Spread your wet lips and show me how it makes you feel, watching me beat off."

A timid moment struck Natasha—so absurd, she'd done so much more, so much worse—the feeling soon passed. She edged a fingertip along the folds of her gates, feeling how slippery and slick her inner flesh, wondering how it would feel to Clint. Would he like it? Would it be as moist as Laura, as tight? She felt electrical jolts of pleasure beneath her searching finger; Clint was stroking himself faster and harder. Natasha plunged a single stiffened finger inside of herself. She wanted to feel what he felt.

He moved closer to her, closer, and Natasha needed so much that she was almost unsure what she wanted, what she needed. He could reject her, he could embrace her, but she needed to know the source of this comfort she felt bolstering inside her. None of the threat, none of the dread she had felt with other lovers, male and female, expecting a knife in the back, a hand around her throat. She was feeling more and more certain, more trust, more faith, as her convictions fell away. She knew nothing. Only that he wanted this. He wanted her.

She sunk into her pillow, her hair, her mattress, grinding her shoulders into them, hiding under the blanket which rolled over her descending form. Clint took hold of it with his free hand and stripped it down her body, exposing her breasts, full, white, heaving, and she grabbed his arm with her free one. It sent a charge of rightness through her; she wanted to touch him, that was part of it, that was some of what she needed. She could feel the muscles throb under his skin; his hand was fisted in the sheet, the knuckles white, everything tense, everything corded. His other hand was flying on his prick, a subvocal groan in his throat for the pleasure he felt.

He was accepting her, embracing her, and that clinched it, she couldn't pretend she didn't care. She wanted his approval, she wanted to be accepted. If he had pushed her away, the rejection would've broken her; she knew simply by the soaring feeling she felt now. He wanted to look at her. She wanted to be seen.

A sultriness touched her voice as she spoke, soft, almost whimpering. Her hand switching to his other arm, cinching his vulnerable wrist, holding his hand still on his cock. "That's fun to watch," she said, her eyes riveted on the swollen cockhead, the veiny shaft. "But I think it should be my job."

It was what he wanted to hear, it was what she wanted to say, or at least what she knew to say to get what she wanted, but it didn't compare to his eyes on her, his skin on hers. It was almost like she didn't want him as a lover, didn't want to seduce him like any other mark…

And his eyes glimmered as they met hers, a slightly sad smirk on his lips. He had a way of looking like that. Sad and happy at the same time. Maybe that was why she liked him so much. For looking like she felt.

"Help yourself," he said, his voice rich with irony.

She didn't want to unpack it, didn't want nuances or complexities. She wanted him. She'd settle for his cock.

Natasha bent down and sucked his manhood into her mouth, warm and moist, hoping he would like it, _knowing_ he would like it, her deep throat and her full lips, they were made for sucking cock. She swirled her tongue rapidly over his crown. She wanted him to like her; it at least felt good to know that much. She swished the tip of her tongue down the underside of his member.

He would like it and she would make him tell her how much, how he loved it, how he loved her, how she was his girl and so good and so his, his good girl, his good girl that he loved and fucked and accepted, that was what she was and what she wanted to be. That was what felt so good about him, that he loved her, and she wanted to make him love her more, she wanted to drown in his love, burn in it, die from it however it killed her.

Natasha could barely resist the urge to keep him in her mouth, nestle the pleasure he got from her deep in her throat, as close to her heart as she could get it, but she knew how to please him and make him love her, she would do whatever it took. She pulled her lips off his tip, some of his precum splashing on her chin like hot rain, and she could suddenly smell his balls, musky and overpowering. She stuck out her tongue as she lowered her face down under his manhood, extending it to its furthest to clean the sweat from him, going from almost past his tight, pulsating scrotum to where it formed a juncture with the base of his shaft.

She could down twelve shots of vodka, but the smell and taste of Clint's balls was getting her far more intoxicated. Her excitement increased with every flick of her tongue against his hairy sensitivity, every subtle groan he let out to reward her efforts. She kept fingering herself, and it felt so much better with his balls in her mouth, his cock gently leaking into her hair. His balls were swollen and heavy, squirming against her slurping, probing tongue.

"Kiss 'em, Nat," Clint said. He wasn't jerking off, he was reaching down into her hair and combing it with his fingers, smoothing it down against her cheeks as they bulged with his flesh, and it felt so good to have him _touching her_ again.

Touching him couldn't compare; he needed to be the one to do it, he needed to be showing his love for her, not hers for him. Natasha could feel her own love so heavily, there was no denying it, it was blinding light inside her. She kissed each ball soulfully, and his cock throbbed wildly against her face, and she felt its precum drip down the glans.

He was about to shoot off, she knew the signs, but no, _no,_ not yet! She deserved more for being so good! Clint must've thought the same thing, known better than to waste his load in her fiery red hair, because he took a deep breath and forced himself to step back from the bedside. When she saw his cock in full, the foreskin had pulled back almost entirely from the head. It was so ready for her. It loved her so much.

"Батя, I need your cock. Please can I have your cock?" She licked her lips slowly, tasted the salty traces of his sweat on them. She gazed longingly at his manhood, even if it was her own saliva that glistened on it, not that delicious _musk._ "I'll be so good for your cock…"

Her legs were spread wide. The sheet was belted around her waist; she could not spare a moment to push it aside. Her stiff fingers were inside her sex, what she was doing was right, she was doing what he wanted, that was why it felt so much better than anything else ever could.

Clint could not deny her any longer; he loved her so much and she was such a good girl for him. She could see how his balls ached; his very flesh needed to give her succor. He put his hand under her head, catching her chin, and led her up until she was on the level of his cock. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed his cockhead and her eyes almost glazed over as she inhaled the scent of his precum.

Her head swam. She thought for a moment she might pass out. Throbbing, uncut, it was too potent for her. She didn't know if she even deserved it. She stuck her tongue out and, cat-like, jiggled the tip of her tongue at his dripping collar. His pre-cum tasted saltier than his sweat; it was good and she swallowed it. She reached up to feel Clint's cock, squeezing it with her fingertips to test its hardness. It was so thick that her fingers only just met around it.

"Stroke it," Clint gasped, giving an order for his good girl to obey.

Natasha squeezed his cock and stroked it, making the foreskin curl over the flared edges of the knob she'd tasted. Another strand of pre-cum oozed out and dripped on her tits. There was so much of it. She could only imagine how much cum there was. Such a big reward for being good…

Holding the shaft tightly, she rubbed the cockhead all over her face. Her own spit and the beginnings of his seed smeared on her cheeks and nose. She pulled her hand from her groin, moving it over Clint's, massaging her own juices into Clint's cock. Then, she looked up at Clint expectantly.

"Touch yourself some more," he told her. "Enjoy it. You deserve to."

She returned to fingering herself, and licked the head of his cock for every stroke she gave. He was watching every flick of her pink tongue at his cock—the tip of it probing his urethra with girlish mischief—her green eyes gazing up at him—her adoring smile that parted to admit his cockhead. He granted it to her, pushing it past her lips, and he forced it in deeper. Natasha let her throat rein, his massive erection sliding down her gullet. She wanted every inch of it, even if she choked to death on it.

"Good girl," Clint growled. "That's it… take it just a little at a time… a little more and… a little more… good girl… good girl…"

He braced his hands on top of her head and gently made love to her mouth, sliding his cock in and out of her lips, in and out of her throat. Her smile was stretched far around his enormously thick shaft, his cockhead sliding in her throat like a bobbing Adam's apple. Her face turned red as she swallowed more. There was so much to take. So much of his love she could have…

"You're such a good cocksucker, Nat." He was groaning and just the sound of that, that almost pained utterance of masculine distress, filled her with glee. She was so good, so good, so good…

Her nose rubbed in his pubic hair. His balls hung against her chin. She'd swallowed the whole thing for him. When she looked up at him, she saw disbelief. Pleased disbelief.

Natasha jerked her head and purred as she sucked. She could hardly breathe, but she didn't care. The taste of Clint's cock, the feel of it filling her mouth and throat, made her wild. She touched her pussy relentlessly, like Clint would, giving herself the endless pleasure her Батя had allowed her.

Each smack of her lips, each pulse of his cock in her mouth, was another spark of ecstasy for her fingers to find. The harder and faster she sucked, the more ecstasy she felt. Her pussy clutched at her ramming fingers. Her toes curled into the mattress. She wanted to come and she wanted Clint to come with her.

His hands were on her cheeks, so tight, and he was forcing her to look at him. "Here it comes, baby—get ready for it—want you to come with me, girl, don't wanna leave off with you—you're gonna come when I do, Nat, come for me, come, come!"

Her Батя was gasping, working his cock in and out of her throat, tossing his head from side to side as the pleasure saturated him. Each flick of her tongue at the underside of his cockhead added to his ecstasy. He, like her, wanted the pleasure to go on forever, to never stop, but he couldn't hold it. He needed to show her what a good girl she was, once and for all. His balls contracted and his cum was on the way, Natasha's reward, to sit inside her belly and warm her all day with his love.

Natasha felt the love surge through his cock. She braced herself as the first spurt gushed into her throat. She gagged on it—there was so much of his love, _such_ a reward for her, and another spurt filled her mouth before she could swallow. Clint was moaning, groaning, ramming his cock in and out.

"Drink it, girlie, suck it out! You wanted it, so take it all! That's a good girl, yeahhh, that's how grateful a good girl is…"

Natasha gagged, but she managed to swallow her reward without losing any of it. It ran down her throat in thick, honeyed wads and the taste of it made her hungry for more. She sucked to the rhythm of Clint's spasming body, sending ecstasy through his shaft with her electric lips, her obedient tongue.

Clint's orgasm had barely even begun when Natasha's followed. Her eyes rolled back. Her hips bucked. Her pussy tightened at her sliding fingers, anointing her smooth young thighs with liquid satisfaction. Her nipples quivered, her toes curled, and she saw stars.

Clint stroked Natasha's soft red hair. As his ejaculation trailed off and his cock grew limp, Natasha kept suckling on it, cradling herself to it like a beloved childhood toy, to keep feeling Clint's callused fingers passing through her hair. The sex was good, but what after was even better. He didn't need her anymore, had gotten his pleasure from her, but he still loved her. She was still his good little girl.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint told Laura everything as soon as she got back. She took it well. Better than he did telling her, watching her face change, first with shock, then a slow numbness, finally a nodding and bewildered curiosity. He guessed that was the only way she could process it. Wanting to figure out how it had happened instead of what happened next.

"I need to be alone," she said. It was bad enough when she was angry. What was worse was when she was just hurt.

"Alright," he said. Not the time to press. Maybe never the time to press.

"Clint?" Laura called as he left the room. He braced himself for some invective, some rage, but there was nothing in her to moor it. She was that lost in this. "Maybe really alone?"

He got his coat and left the apartment.

* * *

She drank next. She'd always heard that could make a bad situation worse, but she didn't know how this could be worse. Clint a cheater, but she couldn't blame him because it was Nat. And she couldn't blame Nat because Nat was _Nat._ And she couldn't blame herself because then… then she'd go crazy.

She drank. She blamed herself anyway.

* * *

She called Clint.

"You said it was because you didn't want to hurt her."

"I know how stupid it sounds." It sounded like he'd been drinking too. One of the watering holes that he wallowed in more than went to, when a mission was especially bad, when he missed or when he didn't miss.

"I understand. You didn't want to hurt her. Reject her. You saw how vulnerable she was…"

The sound on his end clipped like he'd muffled a hand around the mouthpiece. "Laura, no…"

"I'm not saying you took advantage of her. If I thought any of it was for your own gratification, I'd be gone. Do you hear me, Clint? _I'd be gone."_

"I know. That's the only reason I can think that… that you're even talking to me."

Thank God it was over the phone. Thank God she didn't have to look at him and she didn't have to take him looking at her. "It's my fault. I let it happen. She's never been like this before, I knew, I saw, when she came here this time, it was different…"

"Laura…"

"She needed something more. And how is she going to ask for it? She's a child soldier. An assassin, a seductress—of course she's going to seduce you. That's the only path she has to take…"

"Doesn't mean I had to go along…"

"You wanted to give her what she needed, same as I did. Do. She's the only one who doesn't know. Can't talk about what she wants or needs…"

"It's not her fault."

"That's what I said—"

"You said it was your fault. S'not."

"Maybe it's nobody's fault." Laura laughed harshly. "We know what she needs, don't we? And if she's our friend, your partner… do you still want her? And don't you dare lie because you think—"

"I want her to be happy." Clint sounded bleary. Almost crying. "Oh, God, she seemed so happy when it was happening. She didn't look beautiful to me, she just looked happy…"

"She got what she needed," Laura said, almost totally emotionless until she felt the smile tug at her lips. God help her, she was happy for the Black Widow. "She needed to be loved." 

* * *

Half a bottle of wine gone, but Laura didn't feel drunk. She just feel loose. As unanchored as she had since Clint had told her he'd been with another woman. Even if it was Nat.

 _Fuck,_ there was another woman. There wasn't supposed to be anyone else until _kids,_ this was still supposed to be just _them._ Clint and Laura against the world. Only Natasha was the one he was actually going out and fighting alongside. And she'd done a damn good job of it. Protected him. Saved him. Kept him as safe as he kept Laura.

So she could say fuck Fury, fuck the job, and she did mostly out of habit, but Natasha? No, not Natasha. Because she'd always been the other woman. It was just that before they had shared Clint and now Nat was taking more. Or Laura was taking more, trying to make him a husband, a father, and Natasha was trying to hold on to what she'd always had.

It would be so much fucking simpler if Clint had just wanted to screw her. Then at least she could be angry. Angry wasn't numb. Wasn't half- _worried_ about how Natasha was doing, like she owed something to her man's _mistress,_ fuck, _shit…_

She went to Natasha's room. Natasha had been crying, sleeping, sheets tousled enough for it to be either. Staying with them had let her be more vulnerable; now Laura could see the hit she'd taken.

"I'm sorry," she said, grinding her hands on the pillow she hugged to her chest. "I'm so, so sorry…"

"I know you are," Laura said as Natasha's words broke off into the chattering, unvoiced sobs of someone with no experience at crying. It rose and fell in her like bile.

Laura walked over to the bed, sat down at its foot, and Natasha shrank away from her. Laura couldn't have known how much it would hurt, being seen as another hand holding a whip.

"I know Clint. He's the man I'm going to marry. And he wouldn't have anything to do with a woman unless he really cared for her."

Natasha shook her head, desperately, as if she were trying to throw it clear of her body. "It's not that, it _isn't,_ I would never take him away from you. He just had. It's just. There was something I needed. And he was there. I just needed it. I was trained not to need anything and suddenly…"

"You never had a father, did you?" Laura reached down to Natasha's knee, gripping it through the covers. "Or a mother. Or a family. You've had lovers, but no one who really… really mattered, right?"

Natasha bit her lip, ducked her head. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"Nat? Nat?" Laura's hand moved to Natasha's chin, holding it up, having Natasha at least have to know Laura was looking at her, if not meet her eyes. "It's okay for all that to get mixed up. To want everything you need from one person… or two."

"He's yours. He's yours and I didn't have the right—"

"He's not mine. Clint belongs to Clint. We're partners. Just like you and he are."

Natasha gritted her teeth, so hard that Laura didn't know how they didn't break. "I don't know what's happening to me! I don't even know if I like it! It's what I wanted, but… something's wrong with me. Something must be wrong with me…"

Even if Natasha was straitjacketed by her training, if she would physically not let herself cry, the strain was every bit as evident. Sweat broke out across her forehead. Laura reached out to wipe it away and though Natasha could've done it, could've gone untouched, she closed her eyes and savored the feel of Laura's hand on her. Touching her anywhere Laura wanted to touch.

"Nothing's wrong with you," Laura said. "You're just a little different. You want what everyone wants, you need what everyone else needs—you just ask for it in a different way. Nat… would you like it if I touched you?"

"Yes," Natasha admitted, choking, _gagging_ on the word. Then she was nearly hysterical: "But I don't, I don't—"

"Shhh." Laura smiled at her reassuringly. She got up and sat down beside Natasha, leaning against the headboard, and Natasha let Laura lift her head and rest it on her lap. Natasha could smell everything that went into the woman: the lye of the soap and the vanilla body wash and a dash of faded rosewater perfume and curdled sweat, a little acrid and a little sweet, the way a woman should smell.

She'd been this close to women before, touched women before, but this time she wanted it, without orders, without a goal, she just wanted to be touching Laura…

"мамуля…" She knew it was wrong, it had to be wrong—why couldn't it _feel_ wrong? "мамуля…"

She seemed to wait a long time, waiting for that simple feeling to turn dark or suspicious, but it stubbornly refused to. This peace she'd been granted refused to be denied, not by her mistrust, her cynicism, her tradecraft—anything.

Laura held her. Kept holding her and petting her hair and scratching her back as her body at first refused to relax—her heart raced and her blood pounded, demanding that this be a trap, but Laura wouldn't be intimidated by her anxiety. She just waited until Natasha's sense of calm won out over everything else in her life.

Natasha might've fallen asleep… or it was just that she was so used to the hectic pace of her mind, thinking and rethinking and scrutinizing and theorizing, that the balm of being thoughtless passed by her in a blur… but she didn't hear the door open, didn't hear Clint's footsteps, didn't hear anything but sensed the taut alertness she knew meant his hackles were up, the psychic alarm of his that could fill a room when their lives were at risk. She was so attuned to it, she thought she could've felt it on the other side of the world. She felt it now.

But she kept her eyes closed, her head down and in Laura's soothing hands, as she heard Laura speak.

"It's alright, Clint. It's alright."

"What _is_ this? Are you punishing me?"

"I'm not punishing anyone," Laura insisted. "I can't… crowbar her away from you. And I wouldn't want to do that to her, or to you. Or to me. I knew from the beginning that this wasn't going to be a normal marriage, but we promised to do whatever it took to make it work. Maybe it only works with Nat."

"She's not who I love."

"Yes she is. And so am I. Look at her, Clint. Don't you want her to sleep like this every night?"

"Not if it means losing you—"

"It doesn't. I love her too. I want to take care of her just as much as you do, I feel the exact same way you do. I'm looking at you and you're a mirror, Clint. You're not sure, you don't know—I'm not sure! I don't know! But this is what I want. What we all want. Isn't it, Nat?"

Natasha kept her eyes closed. She couldn't open them, wouldn't. Not if she had to see them angry with her, fucked up because of her. She could take anything but that.

"Please, Батя… come to bed?"

All her senses and she could still barely hear Clint take his shoes off, his belt whisper through its loops, him lying down on top of the covers and behind her and pressing to her back and his hand, his hand reaching over her and taking Laura's hand, the pair coming down and resting on her body as she laid there, Clint over her and Laura underneath her, and the safeness just pooled inside her. A real thing, a physical thing, she could feel herself being anchored here and covered here and protected here. And it wasn't Clint's skin against her skin, Laura's warmth with her warmth, but it was enough for now. It was so much, she didn't know how she slept. But she did.

* * *

The Sunday morning sunlight—always seeming so much brighter than any other day—came in through the window of Natasha's bedroom. She turned lazily under the covers and her elbows poked against a body to her left. She turned again and felt her this pressing snugly against a body to her right.

Now she remembered. She was in bed with Clint and Natasha. Her Батя and her мамуля.

Blinking her eyes open, Natasha looked straight into the sleeping face of Clint. His handsome mouth was parted slightly, showing a flash of white teeth, and his face was blank with composure. He looked strong and stoic and protective… and, turning her head, there was Laura. So concerned, so caring, so giving.

Natasha knew what men wanted, what everyone wanted. Strength and give in precise measure. She'd had to supply that herself on many occasions, carefully calibrated to each individual. Maybe she just needed more of both than most people. Clint's strength, Laura's differing kind of strength. The compromise and the grounding and Clint's husky, hairy body with Laura's slender, reedy one. All of them cuddled from one side of the small bed to the other.

"Are you awake, Nat?" Laura whispered softly.

"Yes," Natasha grinned just to do it. She felt like grinning. It was euphoric and airy and lightheaded, this waking up without worry or precaution, and it hit her like a drug. She actually felt giggly, the real thing, not the pantomime she did for men who liked empty-headed bimbos. Now she understood the appeal. Who wouldn't want to be with someone who felt this way?

Who wouldn't want to be _allowed_ to feel this way?

"Daddy's still asleep," Natasha said. She grinned into Laura's angelic face, feeling the warmth of her body so differently from Clint's. He was a furnace radiating heat, fierce but muffled, while Laura was like a campfire that'd just been doused, the ashes smoldering. The heat seemed to be fading, but really, it could flare up again at any time.

Natasha shivered with a small excitement as her мамуля's fingers stole secretly up over her bare thigh.

"What are you doing?" Natasha managed, fighting down the oddly twitching thrill goosebumping her legs.

"You and Clint." Laura's voice came in a breathy whisper. "You're both so cautious. The only thing you risk is your lives. This has had all night to blow up in our faces and it didn't. It's time to enjoy it."

Natasha smiled. "Are you _seducing_ the Black Widow?"

Laura's furtive little fingers snaked a few more inches over Natasha's trembling thigh, moving suggestively close to the soft center between her legs. "Do I have to?"

Natasha glanced again to see if Clint was still asleep, and then she willingly opened her legs to allow Laura to do anything she wanted to. She knew Laura would make her feel good. That was the only way she could feel around her мамуля.

Laura's nimble fingers drifted softly down over Natasha's gently receptive cunt, moving the copper hairs back and forth.

"Play with me, too," Laura whispered, her loving voice husky with need. _This is how she talks to_ Батя _,_ Natasha realized.

She found the other woman's aroused sex with her hand and cupped the moist flesh in her palm. She knew a thousand ways to please a woman, to tantalize her, to make her do anything Natasha wanted, but all of that fled Natasha along the paths of her jittering nerves. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to touch a woman as special as this.

"MMmmmm," Laura breathed, "rub it for me?"

Natasha moved her hand gently back and forth over the labia, feeling the hotness seep up into her palm like steam. Laura liked it. She could feel her liking it. It was so… _gratifying_ to have her like it. If Natasha could've laid there forever and just stared at Laura, her lips parting in silent moans, her nostrils flaring with fiercely needed breath, shaky little smiles twitching on her mouth as she clenched so very hard… she would've.

When the urgent throbs began to pass through Laura's twitchy little cunt, Natasha whispered again to her. "What do you want to do, wake up Батя?"

"No—not yet. We'll have fun with him later."

"What, then?"

"I'll show you!"

To Natasha's astonished delight, Laura suddenly submerged her head under the covers and kissed Natasha's quivering belly. She didn't even care about the scar there—there was a momentary pause of confusion, then she kissed that too. The hot breath and gently puckered lips made Natasha's sex bloom open, and her clitoris began to demand attention. Natasha's well-disciplined body was in uprising. All of it was fighting to be touched.

With a fond sigh for the novelty of this new experience, Natasha opened her legs wider as Laura's head moved lower down to the trench between her thighs.

Natasha jerked slightly as the snaking little tongue began to softly lick just on the barely parted lips of her cunt. The unexpected feeling of warmth and wetness, right where she was most sensitive, made Natasha's slit itch and burn with pleasure, and she lifted her hips a little to show Laura that she liked having being played with that way.

Laura moved her fingertips to the sides of the opening and spread the Venus mount wider apart, sticking her welcome tongue a few inches inside.

Natasha closed her eyes, her cheeks burning with lewd enjoyment, as the nimble little tongue dipped in and out of her, until it seemed like her cunt was pulsing with the strokes of that tongue, throbbing to the rhythm it set.

"Hey," a sardonic male voice grumbled sleepily beside her. "Do you know what time it is?"

Natasha opened her eyes and grinned dreamily at her Батя. He was leaning up on one elbow in the bed, and his eyes were watching Laura's head moving up and down under the covers.

Clint's mouth twitched in a curious, amused smile. "Been a while since I've gotten her to do that," he breathed. "Mind if I watch?"

Natasha grinned. "You can always look at me."

He crawled out of bed and pulled back the cover, revealing Laura on her knees with her ass pushed high in the air as she stroked her tongue voluptuously into Natasha's juicy slit.

"Oh, wow," he whispered.

When Natasha saw that he didn't mind what his fiancé was doing without him, she relaxed and lifted her legs up to form a real trough for Laura. Her nipples began to harden as the pleasure increased, and her labia stretched wider apart to allow the driving tongue a better taste.

Clint stood for a few minutes at the foot of the bed, watching the unbelievable spectacle—his fiancé and his mistress, fucking each other. And as he watched, his rogue prick began to rise in all its glory and kept rising until it stood stiffly out from the dark bush of pubic hair.

The room was filled with nothing but his deep breathing and their wetness, the liquefied tattoo of Laura's hungry tongue moving wetly in and out of Natasha's pussy.

At last, Clint's rising lust wouldn't let him stop at watching.

Moving heavily on his bare feet, he positioned himself right behind Laura's lifted, rosy buttocks. Then he bent down low, as if he were going to smell a pretty rose. He put his nostrils almost against the deeper, headier aroma of her warm young pussy and sniffed.

Her cunt was as pungent as honeyed peppermint.

With a low groan, he rolled his larger, firmer tongue out and began to lap obscenely into Laura's sex. Her pussy throbbed against his touches, and began to gift warm, salty juices against his tongue.

For the next ten minutes the contest ran. Natasha's breathing grew ragged as the fun increased, and several times her inner muscles convulsed hard over the pointed, sluicing tongue which was drawing deeper and hotter pleasures from her core.

"MMMMmmmmm," Natasha sighed, moving her scalded thighs in a slow circle as Laura's insistent mouth worked on her better and better.

Laura's own pussy was responding to the pumping tongue inside of it, surrendering softly and wetly to every lustful trick that was played on it.

The closer Natasha grew to realizing a climax, the tighter and hotter Laura's twitching little passage grew. To speed her to the obvious, Clint located her needful clitoris with the tip of his tongue and began to strum it.

Laura moaned as her mouth dug like a shovel into Natasha's dripping heat.

With both girls having their pussies so deliciously massaged, it only took a few more shimmering seconds before they began to squirm with a series of lovely spasms. Natasha came first, her explosive cunt throbbing around Laura's sucking mouth as a flood of her juices spritzed hotly forward.

Laura lapped the creamy brew and pushed her own pussy lustfully back against the long male tongue eating it like candy. In a kind of one-two-three count, her cunt clenched inwardly, then relaxed with a trickling flow of girlish pleasure.

Feeling his fiancé's sex vibrating against his tongue turned Clint on like a fire engine, and his already stiff prick jerked between his legs like a bar of white-hot tempered steel.

With their pussies both sucked to the final fluttering thrill, the women slumped together, tangling their pretty little legs and thighs together like smoking valentines. That was the final straw in giving Clint a hard-on that wasn't going to be denied.

He used his firmly muscled arms to rearrange the delectable duo on the bed almost effortlessly, placing them so that their legs were draped picturesquely over the side of the mattress and open just enough to make their slackly stretched, wetly trembling cunts available for his use.

Stroking his long and frightfully stiffened prick a time or two with one hand, Clint came between the thighs of his partner and rammed his cock home.

"Батя! Yes, yes, I've been a good girl, Батя! Fuck your good girl!"

The hard column rode roughly up between the succulent lips of Natasha's pussy, pushing the folds back until the cunt hairs stood out like cat's whiskers. He fucked her stubbornly for a few minutes, pumping his naked buttocks back and forth as the muscles in his legs tensed like cords. The well-lubricated cunt between Natasha's limply hanging legs absorbed every demanding inch he gave it, and as his large cockhead rode rudely out, the entire length of his prick glistened with her dripping arousal.

Then he moved lecherously over Laura's even more ready body, forcing his cock to ride roughshod all the way up her quivering little cunt. He fucked Laura until she was moaning softly, her hands up on his chest as if to hold him back from fucking her even harder, even as she cried and begged for more.

"Show her how you fuck me!" Laura panted. "Show her what's about to happen to her wet little pussy!"

Then he pulled his hard flesh out of her soaking pussy, and moved back to Natasha.

How long and how many times he alternated between the two beautiful women offering themselves up to him neither he nor they would ever know. But the game went on for a very long time, with each wanton slit becoming more and more stimulated after each brutal attack.

As for his prick, it had never been treated to such a lascivious feast before, and the gorged and throbbing tool literally dripped with the orgasmic fluids from both of their smoldering cunts long before he was ready to vent himself.

"Nat!" Laura cried, feeling him quicken his pumps into her, his face reddening with near-euphoria. "You have to come in Nat! She deserves it! She needs it!"

Though it pained him to pull free of Laura's perfect grip moments before he was finished, he did, and was instantly rewarded with Natasha's delightfully tight and sucking young pussy rushing to take his seed.

He came between her tender thighs with all the passion of a bull, holding her buttocks clasped in his hands as he hard-fucked her to his climax. Natasha swooned with joy as she felt the sheer magnitude of him massaging the entire length of her pussy with all of his prick!

She spasmed only seconds before her Батя, and that tickling flush of her juices triggered one of the wildest orgasms of Clint's life. His powerfully enraged cock almost hissed as the thick, molten load discharged high up inside her body.

Natasha fell back, her legs flopping, her pussy pulled forward and up by the tower of stiff meat crammed to the hairs inside her.

It was several moments before Clint's manhood was reduced in size enough to be easily dislodged from Natasha's stretched cunt. And when it finally came riding out of her, a hot stream of cum, both his and hers, came sloppily out with it.

"Wow," Natasha breathed, her eyes as large and moist as a doe's as she viewed the richly veined and darkly swollen prick between Clint's hairy legs. "I don't think I've ever been fucked that good… and it was only half!"

Clint grinned, blushing a little at the girlish compliment. "You bring out the best in me. You and your, eh… mother."

Laura settled behind Natasha, happily wrapping her up in arms and legs. "Do we have to get up, 'daddy'? Can't we stay in bed?"

"Please?" Natasha asked, relaxing into Laura's loving embrace as if she'd been built for it. "I don't wanna get up…"

"Alright, baby-cakes. Alright. Let's see how long we can stay in bed. But you're gonna regret challenging an old-timer like me to a sleep-off."

"I don't think I will." Natasha buried her face in Clint's chest as he laid down across from Laura, his open arms almost seeming to magnetically pull Natasha out of Laura's embrace, until she'd dragged her мамуля with her to be held by Clint.

Sandwiched between the two of them, Natasha went back to sleep almost immediately, knowing for once that she would have good dreams. She wondered if they could possibly be better than this.


End file.
